


after sunset

by livtontea



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: (set in s2), Canon Compliant, Gen, Gift Fic, Introspection, TUA Secret Santa 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28321725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livtontea/pseuds/livtontea
Summary: Klaus is sleeping in the back seat. He’d cut the engine and said,you’re in charge of waking me up if we get carjacked.Ben said,how am I supposed to wake you up anyway?Just scream really loud or something, I don’t care.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	after sunset

**Author's Note:**

> this is my secret santa gift for @datiyaknowsshit, i hope you like it, and happy holidays!

It’s late.

Ben’s head feels cotton-stuffed, everything coming through muffled. The streetlamps do little to clear his vision, all muted yellows and oranges dancing over dark purples and blues. And blacks. Ben is accustomed to black.

When he died, it was black. For a second that stretched into hours and days -- or at least, that’s what it felt like -- there was nothing. The darkness engulfed him, surrounded him like he was miles deep underwater. The blood on his skin was invisible, hidden away in the depths of the darkness. And then--

And then there was light.

It blinded him. Seared itself into his retinas, so bright and damaging he wanted to claw his eyes out and scream. The light beckoned him, and he was drawn to it, like a moth to a flame -- drifting closer, and closer, feeling himself start to catch fire, feeling himself fall to pieces, feeling himself be torn apart from the inside out--

And then there was a different light. A blue one, shining on his hands from behind him, dim and almost invisible from how close he was to the white.

His steps -- was he walking? did he have legs to walk on? -- stuttered. He turned away from the light, past the darkness and into the blue glow -- and walked away.

He thinks the light didn’t want him to do that. He felt it screaming at him to turn back, to come back, to find himself a place where he belonged. Tires scratched and a bicycle bell rang and seventeen-year-old Ben opened his eyes to a funeral.

Thirty-something-year-old Ben closes his eyes and leans the back of his skull on bricks that must be rough. He doesn’t feel them. He only feels the subtle warmth emanating from them -- they’re only warm because he’s colder than them.

He’s always colder than things, now. He can’t even remember how it used to be before.

Ben wonders what Klaus would say if he asked him. Then he snorts, because _yeah, right. Hey, bro, what does it feel like to be alive? I seem to have forgotten. Care to describe it to me?_

He’d never hear the end of it. Klaus still brings up the time he tried to lean on a wall and fell through.

(Sometimes he wonders how far he could fall, if he let himself. If he just… let go. Ben has fallen through walls, chairs, bookcases. Is it that far a stretch that he might be able to keep falling? Through the floor, through the ground, and just… fly through the earth and drift off into space. Endlessly hurtling in the suffocating darkness.)

(Ben is so fucking familiar with darkness.)

Vanya used to leave the light on for Five. When he was gone and they were waiting for him to come back. Five came back too late. Ben is bitter, sometimes, over it. Nobody ever left the light on for him. Nobody thought Ben would come back.

Nobody believed Klaus when he told them Ben already did.

He blinks. His eyes dazzle.

It’s fucking stupid. He can’t feel anything, he can’t smell, taste. Be seen like any other person would be. But his eyes dazzle -- numbly, painlessly -- and he reaches up to rub away the sparks out of habit.

He blinks again. Everything flashes blue, and then -- nothing.

Well.

Not _nothing._ Not like that. Regular nothing. Brick wall, streetlamps, moths flying around the bulbs. Ben sighs and lets his head roll to the side where Klaus is parked in the car. Technically, it’s just his car -- but Ben likes to pretend they co-own it. So he has at least something material to claim as his.

Klaus is sleeping in the back seat. He’d cut the engine and said, _you’re in charge of waking me up if we get carjacked._

Ben said, _how am I supposed to wake you up anyway?_

_Just scream really loud or something, I don’t care._

Ben made a face.

_Or don’t._ Klaus turned onto his side and curled into the seat. _Whatever._

His chest is rising and falling. Ben raises his hand and presses it to his heart. He takes a deep breath, and feels nothing.

Ben shifts, leaving the wall like he was a part of it all along. His fingers brush against the brick as he steps away. He settles on the hood of the car, tipping his head back and looking at the clouds that hide the lightening sky and leave the sliver of moon shining through. He hears Klaus shift around in the back seat.

The night is young no longer. The dark purple is fading to a washed-out lavender at the corners of the sky. Soon the sun will come out and will feel nothing as it hits his skin.

He closes his eyes and waits for the sunrise.

**Author's Note:**

> this is also posted on my tumblr @zontiky, thank you so much for @secret-santa-klaus for organizing and modding this event :) kudos and comments are appreciated, happy holidays!


End file.
